Spin the wheel....pull the arm....throw the dice.... Many of us may not have gambled literally at
the last ACS meeting in Las Vegas, but at every turn we had myriad opportunites for technical
exposure and interactions. All was bound to pay off in this respect. Because of our own program
and the very close proximity of GEOC, PETR, ENVR, and CATL programming, there were
ample opportunities to attend relevant technical talks. In the same venue, the new Las Vegas
Convention Center, was the lively ACS Exposition. I personally have never left with so many
giveaways and fruitful conversations with exhibitors. Our participation in Sci-Mix was excellent
- every one of our Glenn Award nominees presented a poster of their work in addition to their
oral presentations, and the crowds were large. Our division dinner was a wonderful and unique
experience, as servers wielded skewers of meat on glittering swords inches from our noses. (If
anyone who attended happens to have taken a picture of this event, please let me know because
I'd like to scan into our website). We have Mohammed Fatemi and Parviz Rahimi to thank for
organizing this dinner at Yolie's Brazilian Steakhouse.
We had a fairly small program this time due to the ICCS in Germany during the same week, so
the four-day ACS format for Vegas worked out well. Three of our six symposia fell into the
ACS focal area of programming on environmental issues, which made a nice cluster. The
division needs to thank the eminently capable and very friendly Judi Cromer for staffing our table
and for taking the notes at our business meetings. Finally, I hope that everyone who tried the
slots, the blackjack table, or the roulette wheel in addition to the available ACS technical content
came away as fortunate.
Submitted by: K. A. Carrado, Program Chair 1997